IN THIS ISSUE.

Rosie O'Donnell and Melissa Etheridge may have been caught...

March 24, 2002|By Elizabeth Taylor.

Rosie O'Donnell and Melissa Etheridge may have been caught in the glare of the headlines recently, but in real life, lesbian parents hardly qualify as breaking news these days. In fact, in an attempt to capture what was special and unique about gay parents and their children, writer Grant Pick and photographer Steve Kagan tagged along with three families for today's cover story, and guess what they found: They're pretty ordinary.

Grant Pick has a history of writing about families for the Magazine. He has detailed what happens when a family with young children faces the death of a parent. In another story, he spotlighted a Chicago boarding school that takes in troubled kids when parents throw up their hands. Grant, a longtime married father of two, says: "I have always heard the expression, 'A family is the people who love you.' " The variations are what make families interesting, and Grant shows how the families featured in "A Typical Suburban Family" are navigating the waters of difference.

The thing is, we're all different. "I don't know anyone who lives in the 'Leave It to Beaver' world," observes Steve Kagan. "We all have unusual qualities, whether it's two dads, or three greyhounds or, as in our case, lots of cameras."